What dreams may come

Last night I dreamed I was hosting a dinner party for a lot of people from high school that I didn't like. Don't get me wrong: I didn't loathe anyone in high school, but there were a fair number of people to whom I was viciously indifferent. They were all in my house: sitting, staring, and they all had high school hair. You know, high school hair: alarmingly dated and full of product to make sure that not a hair is out of place. Hours go into these awkward hairstyles, time that would have been better spent with soap and water, but never is, creating helmet-head acne-ridden weirdos who think they're Tiffany. Ah, high school.

So there we were, in my enormous dream house, and they were all having a terrible time because of two things I'd done wrong. One, I'd sat them separately or in couples around the place, at little tables with candles, as if I wanted them all to date each other. I have no excuse for this. I can't explain it. And two, it was freezing, and the only way to warm up was to pump on a massive bellows attached to a fire pit at one end of the hall. I'm not sure how I could have fixed this to make a better dinner party, to be honest.  If this was the way I'd heated my home, they should have damned well dealt with it.  I also heard a rumour floating around that they didn't like the red wine, which had been specially made by leaving seeds in very stiff grapes and slicing them in a particular way. It sounds good to me, but I guess my guests were assholes.

My point is: wow, dreams are crazy, and they arrive in very much the same way that writing ideas arrive (for those of you who incessantly ask writers "Where do you get your ideas?" this is for you.) Not from dreams, but from the same crazy place, where the experiences of your day are tossed with memories you didn't know you had, and then vigorously shaken through with imaginative elements that no one can predict.

I wish I could try that wine.

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Photo: Tapas basement restaurant by Matt DeTurck on flickr